Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for controlling a watchdog, and more particularly, to a method of controlling a watchdog to more safely respond to repeated watchdog resets and an apparatus for the same.
Discussion of the Related Art
A watchdog within a microcomputer refers to an operation of monitoring to detect when an operation is suspended due to a system failure or an infinite loop is entered due to a software error. A watchdog timer refers to an apparatus that performs a particular operation (e.g., a system reset operation when a system response does not occur for a preset period of time).
An embedded system, such as a vehicle controller, requires an ability to restore an error. In general, when an error occurs in the embedded system, a watchdog apparatus is configured to reboot the system to restore the system to a normal operation. For example, a related art discloses a technology for using various watchdog timers to respond to an error in hardware or software of a controller and storing reset information within a memory to identify the reset information. However, a conventional scheme of controlling a watchdog merely discloses a procedure of rebooting a system based on a watchdog timer, and may fail to fundamentally resolve a cause of an error that occurs in the system.